To help maintainers learn the new avionics modernization program upgrades on the C-5 Galaxy aircraft they will be fixing, Air Mobility Command and Air Education and Training Command commissioned a special simulator to train them. Called the Combined Avionics Systems Trainer, the simulator provides hands-on experience trouble-shooting a problem, eliminating the need to train on real airplanes. MSgt. Mark Ruehr, C-5 trainer development team chief, said: “The problem with working on an actual aircraft is the inability to break something so students can learn how to fix it. We can’t cut a wire on a plane just for training purposes.” CAST supports both AMP and pre-AMP systems and should be available for current maintainers this month and for technical school students by November.
After months of debate and sometimes public tension, the Space Force and Intelligence Community are making progress on establishing ways to work together, officials said this week—to the point where one predicted there will soon be “a sharing of data like we've never seen before.”